


Believe It!

by soundofez



Series: Believe It (MaStar/Naruto AU) [1]
Category: Soul Eater
Genre: (Death the Kid/Soul Eater Evans), (Franken Stein), (Shinigami-sama | Lord Death), (Spirit Albarn), Alternate Universe - Naruto Fusion, F/M, Soul Eater Reverse Resonance Bang, This is a terrible idea, featuring an overpowered dtk and a very very tired stein, stein's permanent mood boils down to, who put me in charge of children and Why
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:53:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24745639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soundofez/pseuds/soundofez
Summary: Maka is no stranger to noise, but Black Star is louder than he has any right to be. [MaStar, Naruto AU, Reverb 2020.]
Relationships: Maka Albarn/Black Star
Series: Believe It (MaStar/Naruto AU) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1788238
Comments: 28
Kudos: 20
Collections: Chibi! Reverse Resonance Bang 2020





	1. Black Star

**Author's Note:**

  * For [happyisahabit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/happyisahabit/gifts).



> Reverb's back!!
> 
> Shoutout to [@reverbmod](https://reverbmod.tumblr.com/) for putting the event together once again! My artist this season is once again the brilliant [@happyisahabit](https://happyisahabit.tumblr.com/), who has driven me absolutely FERAL with her [art, seriously, just look at it](https://happyfanart.tumblr.com/post/621044909798031360). Heck, we've turned it into an entire series, so stay tuned for more ;)
> 
>  **Links:** [[event tumblr](https://reverbmod.tumblr.com/)] [[happy's art](https://happyfanart.tumblr.com/post/621044909798031360)] [[tumblr post](https://soundofez.tumblr.com/post/621045442266988544/)]

Maka is no stranger to noise. Her own Papa makes plenty, wailing the way he does when mama leaves on or returns from missions. He fills the house with laughter and sobs as his mood takes him. 

But Maka knows quiet, too: when Papa reads to her, his voice mirrors the sway and swell of the stories he tells. When they practice genjutsu together, he shows her how peaceful silence can be, how frightful.

* * *

Black Star is louder than he has any right to be, sneaking into the girls' bathrooms "because they don't stink!" and earning the hatred of every girl in class.

Maka is no different. When she catches him coming out of the girls' toilet again, she punishes him with a genjutsu that has him screaming about a phantom stench.

The next time he sees her, he accuses her of dropping a stink bomb outside the bathrooms, which is _rude_ and also _untrue_ , Maka _does not stink_. Their teacher has to pull them apart to get them to stop fighting and apologize.

He keeps calling her _stinky girl_ until, fed up, she wraps her arms around his head and pulls his face into her shoulder in the middle of the playground. "I'm not stinky!" she screams through a mouthful of his bright blue hair.

When he doesn't protest, Maka realizes with a start that she's _hugging him_. She shoves him off of her.

Black Star blinks up at her from the dusty ground. "You smell good," he says, astonished.

"I _told_ you so," Maka says. Her face feels flushed. With anger, of course. There's no way she could ever have a crush on a boy, and _especially_ not one like Black Star.

* * *

There are consequences to hugging a boy on the playground, in plain sight of your entire class. Maka chops down everyone who dares sing _K-I-S-S-I-N-G_ to her face.

Stupid Black Star just fans the flames whenever people ask him what he thinks about The Hug. He keeps repeating that Maka smells nice, and everyone _assumes_ that means that he likes her, even though Maka _knows_ that when boys are _really_ in love they get weepy like Papa.

"I don't like Black Star!" she announces to the playground one day. "If I liked a boy, it would be someone like Kid!"

She's thought this through: the safest person to have a "crush" on, so that people never ask, is the tamashikage's son Kid, who is never in public except on test days and also is too important to know someone like Maka. She doesn't _actually_ like him— he's too frail and weak— but it seems like every other girl in their school has a crush on him, so Maka figures they can't tease her for liking him the way they tease her for "liking" stupid Black Star.

It works. The boys mutter about how stupid it is that all the girls like Kid, and the girls all accept that Maka, like them, will never have a chance with him. (Papa gets wind of the announcement and hesitantly asks her about it: she tells him the truth, which is that she doesn't like Kid at all and just wanted people to shut up about Black Star, and he relaxes immediately.)

After that, Maka almost forgets about it, _almost_ , except… Sometimes she catches Black Star staring at her. She tries to glare at him to make him stop. It never works, and it always makes her cheeks burn with anger. (And it _is_ anger! It is definitely anger and nothing else, she thinks as she puts her head in her arms to sulk.) And on test days, when Kid actually comes to school, the other girls will nudge her and giggle, and Maka has to stop herself from rolling her eyes.

And then, just her luck, she gets put in a team with _both of them_.


	2. Death the Kid

Maka isn't sure whether to be delighted or aghast that her team leader will only be taking one student from their assigned team. On one hand, she vehemently does not want to be on a team with both of her "crushes," and since Kid is weak and she _refuses_ to lose to Star, that means she will be the only surviving team member. On the other hand, she's not sure she wants Captain Stein to be her teacher, because he's probably breaking ten thousand rules by refusing to accept the team. (Not that she _blames_ him, but rules are rules.)

Star is still shouting when Maka catches the captain's eye and concentrates on a genjutsu. Stein stops blinking— bingo!— and it's no trouble at all for Maka to walk up to him and pluck the bell still dangling from his hand.

She turns around, grinning victoriously, and then the ground vanishes from under her feet. She screams as she plunges to her death—

She's flat on her back, staring up at the sky, her throat sore from screaming.

"You're going to have to do better than that," Stein says, voice dry as dust. "I barely saw anything."

Maka hears Star inhale, imagines the way he swells up with complaints. Sure enough, he yells, "What did you do to Maka?"

"Nothing much," says Stein calmly. "Would you like to try?"

Star announces his attack with a wordless shout. Maka pushes herself upright, slowly, in time to watch Stein plant Star in the ground headfirst, which startles a laugh out of her.

"Are you all right?"

Startled, she looks up. "I— I'm fine." Her voice is still hoarse from her scream.

Kid is scowling, standing over Maka's left shoulder. "He used genjutsu on you. That wasn't fair."

"I used it on him, first," Maka admits.

But Kid is glaring at Captain Stein, who is jingling the bell thoughtfully. Kid makes a few hand seals, and then the earth under Stein's feet _pitches_ like a rolling sea.

Captain Stein doesn't move from the spot (that had been one of his rules for this fight), but he does drop to his knees to catch his balance. As he does, a thin spike of earth shoots upward and snags the loop of the bell, removing it from his hand.

Maka's jaw drops.

"Are you sure you're qualified to be our teacher?" Kid asks. His voice drips with disapproval.

Captain Stein grins. "Congratulations on the win, little Death."

Kid shakes his head. "I don't have the bell yet. And you _let_ me take it, anyway. That's cheating."

Maybe her classmates _hadn't_ been fawning over nothing, Maka thinks… just before Kid collapses at her feet in a dead faint.

Nevermind.

* * *

They train together for about a week before Captain Stein shows his slimy, sycophantic side again and takes off with Kid to train him specially. He at least has the grace to leave Maka and Black Star with some assignments, but after the tenth time Maka has to pull Star out of a genjutsu herself, she is feeling more than a little impatient.

"Just use your chakra!" Maka commands. It's baffling: Black Star overflows with chakra, so how can he have such a difficult time using it to break a genjutsu?

"I know!" Black Star snaps at her. "It's not that easy!"

"You don't have to yell," she says snippily, eying the chakra crackling visibly on Star's skin. "And it _is_ that easy. You're doing it _now_. That would break a genjutsu right away."

"You were yelling first," Star grumbles. He follows her gaze to his shoulder. "What do you mean, I'm doing it now?"

Maka blinks, and Star's chakra fades from her vision. "Don't you know?" she asks, disbelief lacing her voice. "You have _so much chakra_. Like, stupid amounts of chakra. You're _always_ using it."

Star rolls his eyes. "Then I'm not using it _right_ , am I? Since I can't break your stupid genjutsu."

That stops Maka in her tracks. "How do you use it, then?" she asks.

"How do _you_ use it?" Star fires back.

Maka has to stop and think again. "I don't know," she admits, suddenly confused. "I just _do_."

She asks her Papa that evening. "How do you break a genjutsu?"

Spirit turns toward her from the kitchen stove. "Why? What happened?" He's suddenly in front of her, forehead to forehead, little green crosses in his eyes. "Did Stein do something?" he demands. "I couldn't find anything, but—"

Maka shoves at him. "Papa! Don't _do_ that!"

"I'm sorry, baby, I was just looking for foreign genjutsu—"

" _Don't!_ " She glares at him, her eyes fixed firmly on his nose to avoid the crosses still in his eyes. "It wasn't Captain Stein," she says begrudgingly. "I was trying to teach one of my teammates how to break genjutsu. Dinner's burning, by the way."

Spirit stares blankly down at her, and then he whirls back to the stove with an exclamation.

Maka waits until they've sat down around the table before she asks again. "How do you break a genjutsu?" she asks, keeping her gaze on her curry rice.

Spirit hums thoughtfully. When he speaks, it is through a full mouth. "You have to break the flow of your chakra," he says.

"I remember. I know _how_."

He nods. "But you don't know how to explain it, right? So go back to the basics. Remember our chakra-control exercises?"

She does. She explains these to Black Star the next day, and then she spends the entire next half-year correcting him. His enormous stores of chakra are such a _waste_ — he has no control whatsoever.


	3. Captain Stein

Maka's heart is drumming birdlike in her chest. Blood pounds in her ears, deafening her, even though she can't afford to lose one of her senses _now_ , on her first C-rank capture mission, approaching a camp of bandits and surrounded on two sides by high canyon walls. She's half-convinced that one of the bandits has spotted her, is sneaking up on her, will grab her by a pigtail any second—

Black Star explodes through the boulder beside her, whooping louder than even her own blood, and suddenly Maka can breathe again, shocked into a gasp by his bright hair and crackling chakra. _Is that lightning?_ she wonders with more than a little jealousy as she watches him burst, fearless, into the circle of bandits.

Just moments ago, the crackling campfire was the loudest thing in the bandit's campsite. Now it is barely audible under the noise of battle. Captain Stein is probably groaning in exasperation, but Maka won't think of him until later. For now, she jumps to her feet, summoning scroll in hand, ready to charge to Star's side.

A small pebble whizzes past her boulder and into the arm of a bandit. They yelp and whirl toward Maka and Kid, one boulder behind her.

She heaves her _tessen_ from its case on her back and leaps upward, onto the boulder, where she opens the enormous fan to draw even more of the bandits' attention to her. Behind her, Kid fires stone shuriken at the approaching bandits. Behind _them_ , Star is already in close combat with a swordsman.

The shuriken are still going. For now, they probably look like Maka's, but once the bandits figure out that there's a third person, they'll flush out Kid in a heartbeat. He can't even really climb like Maka and Star can— he hasn't completely gotten over his fainting fits— so it's up to Maka to keep the bandits from finding him. (She doesn't know yet that he's found a nice hidden shelf in the canyon walls overlooking the chaos, where he can manipulate his chakra-embedded weapons from afar. She'll find out later, when he will slide down to join them.)

She aims her chakra through the blades of her fan, where it activates the weapon-summoning seals that decorate the paper. Columns of kunai fire from her fan in great puffs of smoke, obscuring the bandits' vision. The combination is enough to break the bandits' meager discipline, and they scatter out of her line of fire. (Maka winces when one kunai thuds, point first, into the dust at Star's feet. He doesn't trip, but it's a near miss that Maka resolves to work on.)

Later. For now, she snaps her fan shut and leaps to help Black Star against that swordsman.

* * *

Maka takes the little paper square from Captain Stein's lazy hand. "I don't think Star will sit still for origami," she says dubiously.

"The boys don't need it," Captain Stein says. "Give it a look and tell me what you see."

Maka brightens at the idea that it's for _her_. Kid's chakra control has been head and shoulders above both hers and Star's, but with Star's recent training in his bloodline limit, Maka has been feeling… weak. She doesn't like it.

But Maka has a bloodline limit, too. She gathers chakra in her eyes to activate it and examine the slip of paper in her hands. It feels normal to her touch, but her enhanced sight lets her see the chakra matrix imbued in the paper. Half on instinct, she runs a current of her own chakra through her fingers and into the paper.

The matrix activates immediately. The slip of paper splits neatly in half.

"I thought so," Captain Stein drones. Maka looks up at him. "Wind-natured," he adds. It might be an explanation, but Maka doesn't think Stein _explains_ things so much as he just says what comes to mind.

Wind-natured, he'd said. "So I'd beat Star?" she asks hopefully, thinking of the textbook advantage that wind-natured chakras have over lightning-natured ones.

Captain Stein grins, an uncommon sight that Maka still finds a little disturbing. "You tolerate him," he says.

Maka doesn't think he's talking about their chakras anymore.


	4. Lord Death

The tamashikage is as chipper as ever as they make their report. The only sign that he has heard them is the gentleness in his voice as he thanks them for their hard work.

For Maka, it's not enough. "Your _son_ has been _captured_ ," she says. "We need to find him."

Captain Stein pushes her head down into a bow. "I apologize for my student's disrespect," he says to Lord Death. "We will rest and await further orders, sir."

"No need for apologies, Captain Stein," Lord Death replies. "Thank you, Miss Maka, for caring for my son."

They're dismissed to the hospital. Maka sits through the medics' fussing and quietly plans an unsanctioned departure from the village. Lord Death may be content to win the shittiest father award, but Maka's not about to let Kid pay the price.

She notices Star watching her, but she doesn't think much of it, other than her utter conviction that he's cottoned on to her plans. There's no way he agrees with the tamashikage any more than she does— he's too uncharacteristically quiet for that.

Just as she'd expected, Star catches up with her about ten minutes outside of the village. " _Finally_ ," Maka greets. "I was just about to circle back to fetch you."

"No, you weren't."

Maka ignores the banter, instead shutting her mouth as a gust of wind picks up and tries to throw sand in her face. When it passes, she starts explaining the plan to rescue Kid, starting from where he was taken and ending safe and sound in their village.

Star doesn't say much as she talks. He doesn't say much after she's done, either.

"Well?" she prods. "What do you think?" It's exactly the sort of hare-brained plan that he usually loves. She'd thought he would appreciate the complete lack of direction. (She's not happy with it, herself, but she's not about to sit around hoping for ideas that might not come. Star's long since taught her the value of charging in.)

"I think you're obsessed."

Maka frowns. "What?"

"Kid this, Kid that," Star says sullenly. "He's not even _here_."

Maka looks at him for the first time since he'd arrived, astonished. "He's been _kidnapped_ ," she reminds him. "And the tamashikage doesn't even care! We're the only ones who can _do_ anything."

"He'll be fine."

"He's been _kidnapped_!" Maka repeats. "What about that is _fine_? What is _wrong_ with you?"

"What's wrong with _you_?" Star shoots back. "It's like you can't function without him!"

"Wh— Just because my plan is a little less substantial than usual— which you always complain about anyway, so I don't know why you're complaining _now_ — What is your _problem_?!"

"My problem is you won't admit you like Kid!"

Maka is more lost than ever. "Of course I like Kid? He's our teammate. He's been our teammate for _years_."

Star growls. "No, I mean you _like_ him."

Suddenly the meaning of like and _like_ click in Maka's brain. "Ew, _no_. What? _**No**_."

Star's scoff tells her exactly how much he believes her. "Come _on_. You've liked him since we were kids."

Maka scoffs right back. "No, I didn't."

"'I don't like Black Star!'" he says in a mocking, high-pitched voice. "'If I liked a boy, it would be someone like Kid!'"

Maka bursts into astonished laughter. "Oh Death, you still remember that? I didn't _actually_ like Kid. I just wanted people to stop talking about _you_." Another thought occurs to her, one that's so absurd that she can't help but laugh harder. "Hey, Star, you sound _jealous_!"

"Stop _laughing_ ," Star snaps. "I still think you're obsessed."

Maka's laughter dies in her throat. She hesitates, says carefully, "I don't think we should abandon anyone like that. We weren't even that injured— Captain Stein made sure of that." She's still bitter about how their captain had knocked them both out and carried them away. "We could have _fought_."

"Yeah," Star agrees after a moment. "We could have."

* * *

Maka has heard of Soul Evans many times over the past years, mostly because he's her Papa's favorite complaint. Soul Evans is lazy and unmotivated, Papa says; he's a playboy, and Maka needs to stay away from him; he's _weird_ , because he doesn't even take charge of his female teammates like a _man_ should. (Maka has chopped him for this last complaint. It doesn't stop Papa from repeating it, or from trying to roll it back whenever Maka corrects him. Papa is stupid like that.)

She's never really thought about him. If she had, she might have been less surprised by how competent he is at tracking and planning and collaborating with his teammates. She's pretty sure she would still have been surprised by how protective he is, not just of Liz and Tsubaki, but also of Kid.

"I'll take him," he says, cutting into Maka and Star's latest argument, a tired haggling over who will carry Kid's unconscious body home. "You're both worn out. My team is still fresh. We can protect him."

"No," his blonde teammate interrupts from where she stands about six feet away. "Don't rope us into this one, Eater. You can carry your boyfriend all you want, but you're doing it alone."

Soul's ears flush. "I'm not saying you have to," he calls back. "At least cover me?"

"Boyfriend?" Star repeats. "Kid has a _boyfriend_?"

The flush spreads to Soul's cheeks. "We're not dating," he mutters. "Liz is just embarrassing."

" _Yet_ ," Tsubaki, his other teammate, contributes. "Not dating _yet_."

"And you're one to talk, Eater."

Maka decides that she likes Team Spirit, and that Papa needs to appreciate his students more.


	5. Maka Albarn

Even after Maka's many years of tutelage, Star has trouble breaking out of all but the simplest genjutsu. This is why, when she catches sight of his subdued chakra, she flies to his side. She knows his chakra flow almost as well as she knows her own, and probably better than he knows it, too, given his eternally abysmal chakra control.

Star emerges from the genjutsu with a gasp and a crackle of chakra. Sand scatters around them, but Maka breathes through the rush of static and emerges refreshed.

"Mak!" Star shouts, and somehow Maka knows to duck under a swinging katana while Star takes care of its wielder.

The ground rumbles under them. A moment later, they are shooting skyward on a tiny plateau of earth.

"You two are the worst," Kid complains as he lands on a newly-formed plateau next to them. "One day, I won't be around, and you're going to get yourselves killed."

"That's already happened," Star points out. "We has it handled, then and now."

"Thanks anyway," Maka adds, elbowing Star. He pulls a face at her.

Kid makes an impatient noise and drops them back into the fight.

* * *

Maka likes planning. No, _really_ , she enjoys a well-made plan. It's just that in the heat of battle, plans often go awry, and once that happens Maka just goes with the flow and tries to stay alive. (And, okay, _maybe_ she enjoys the chaos a little bit. Just a little bit.)

Afterwards, though, the plans hit harder, sink deeper. Maka has had to ration first-aid supplies in the past, stretching them to guarantee that there is at least one more emergency bandage, at least one more painkiller. (At least with Captain Stein around, she doesn't have to worry about sutures.)

This time, Maka has been stewing over one plan in particular.

It's not even really a plan, just a vague sense of emotions boiling over. Maka has spent most of her life trying to not think about Black Star. She'd mostly succeeded, too— it was just the one night alone with him, when she'd noticed that he sounded jealous, that had finally cracked open a new insight into her teammate, her partner, her _friend_. 

She, Star, and Kid are crouched together in the aftermath of a fight, leaning against one another. At some point, a glancing pebble must have ripped out one of Maka's earrings: she can feel blood dripping from the tearing wounds. Kid is standing, but Black Star is a warm, comforting presence beside her, his chakra staticky even now, slowly winding down from the excitement.

She turns to him. "I like you," she says out loud, testing the words. 

Star doesn't react for a moment. Then his chakra crackles to life, and Star hisses, " _Release_."

Maka turns to stare at him. He opens one eye tentatively and sighs. "This is gonna be so awkward," he says gloomily.

"Was that a genjutsu release?" Maka asks.

"Sure," says Star. "Fat lot of good it did." He considers her thoughtfully. "I gotta say, this isn't a bad genjutsu to be stuck in."

Maka seizes him by the collar of his regulation jacket. " _This isn't genjutsu, stinkbrain._ "

Star blinks down at her. "It's not?"

" _What made you think it was?_ "

He fumbles at her grip on his jacket collar. "Uh, maybe the fact that you're _Maka Albarn_? You don't like anyone. You _definitely_ don't like me. And if you did, you wouldn't say it."

Maka is dimly aware that she is screaming. "Well, I _did_ say it, and I _do_ like you, and the least you could do is _take it seriously_ instead of joking around like you always do!"

Star stops fumbling at her grip in favor of staring at her, slack-jawed. Maka suddenly feels like she's five again, standing in the middle of a playground and hugging a boy. Her ears throb with embarrassment and pain from that still-bleeding wound. She almost pushes him away again, but she's not a child anymore, and she won't act like one. Instead she keeps her eyes fixed on Star's, green on beautiful electric blue.

"You like me?" Star asks into the silence between them.

"Not right now, I do not," Maka snaps, but her fingers relax their grip on his clothes.

"Make up your _mind_ ," Star complains. "When did you—"

"Forever," Kid interrupts, apparently unable to hold his silence. Maka jumps. She'd forgotten he was there.

"Shut up, Kid," Star says.

"I will not," their teammate replies. "You two have been pining for each other forever. It's been sickening."

"You're one to talk," Star says, but Maka repeats, "What do you mean, _pining_?"

But Kid, confronted with his own unspoken relationship issues, simply walks away to flee the conversation. Maka grabs Star's face and turns him back to her. "What did he mean, pining? How long have you— _You like me? Really?_ "

"Twenty-two years," Star says without missing a beat. "I asked first."

Maka presses her forehead to his. "Always," she admits. "Kind of. Maybe. I _think_."

"What a glowing reassurance," Star says.

"Shut up," Maka says.

Unbelievably, he does.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Links:** [[event tumblr](https://reverbmod.tumblr.com/)] [[happy's art](https://happyfanart.tumblr.com/post/621044909798031360)] [[tumblr post](https://soundofez.tumblr.com/post/621045442266988544/)]
> 
>  **Bonus content:**  
>  \- distant sound (soul and kid meet): [fic](https://soundofez.tumblr.com/post/618237560555290624/) by soundofez | [art](https://happyfanart.tumblr.com/post/618204196224827392/) by happyisahabit  
> \- Lightning/Wind (adult maka and star): [maka's side](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24681892) by happyisahabit | [star's side](https://soundofez.tumblr.com/post/620907246715535361) by soundofez  
> \- Blood and Iron (post-mission anbu maka and star): [fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24657598) by happyisahabit | [art](https://happyfanart.tumblr.com/post/620639232024870912) by happyisahabit | [art](https://soundofez.tumblr.com/post/620741937745608704) by soundofez | [anbu masks](https://soundofez.tumblr.com/post/620635460666081280/) by soundofez


End file.
